VMI History

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of integration at VMI. It was hard enough going to VMI as a Rat from Massachusetts - it's hard for me to even imagine what it must have taken for those first African-American Rats to matriculate (and it is kind of shocking to me that this was only a few years before I arrived at VMI. My North-Eastern suburban middle class world just didn't comprehend a world where you were excluded because you had different colored skin - and yet those guys could have been my older brothers and they were pathfinders!) T he interview in the attached link is really interesting . It's a point of both shame that it took so long for this wrong to be addressed- and yet after watching the interview , I'm also proud that in the end VMI lived up to her values and ideals, and I'm proud to be (remotely) associated as a VMI Alum with men such as the three in this interview. These three rep VMI far better than I can.